


The Danger Is I'm Dangerous

by equalopportunityobsessor



Series: 'Webhead', and Other Really Stupid Nicknames [2]
Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gwen is taking none of your shit, Hulk Feels, Hulk Incident, Peter's going to earn his Avenger's stripes, Teambuilding, The Hulk needs a hug, all of the best friendships are built on science and life-threatening situations, and badass-ery, not The Amazing Spiderman 2 compliant, through a lot of hard work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-01-24 04:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1592399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equalopportunityobsessor/pseuds/equalopportunityobsessor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen fell in love with a superhero with the understanding that sometimes bad things were going to happen to her. Bruce let Tony bring him back into society with the understanding that sometimes he was going to do bad things. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>(Still, neither of them were entirely prepared for what happened.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> To all the lovely, lovely readers who commented and encouraged me to get this up sooner rather than later... You are the reason this chapter exists right now. I've tagged this as WIP because the rest of the work isn't ready to go yet (i.e. the ending isn't done), but I don't expect it to take very long!
> 
> This first bit isn't very exciting, I know, but I wanted to get all the boring stuff out of the way at once!

Bruce tried really, really hard to behave like an adult - he felt someone should in the labs, and everyone knew that Tony wasn’t going to do it. It was only a desire not to be the latest source of gossip in the cafeteria that kept him from throwing a tantrum right now (never believe what anyone tells you - scientists are horrible, horrible gossips. And they always, always feel the need to go and look for proof of whatever crap they were hearing).

Bruce could almost hear it now: “That Doctor Banner is starting to sound a lot like Mr. Stark… Do you think something is going on there?”

So. Throwing a tantrum: Not an option. That didn’t stop Bruce from wanting to throw the textbook and his neatly racked test tubes all over the floor, just for the pleasure of not having to clean it up. All of his ‘lab assistants’ had been the meek, mousy types he remembers working alongside (painfully) in his undergraduate years - not one of them would ever dare tell him off, or even so much as speak, really.

Bruce took several deep breaths, and left the lab before the nervous, side-long looks from his current ‘lab assistant’ could drive him over the edge for real.

(Did anyone really think that if he wasn’t 100% absolutely sure he had complete control over the Other Guy that he would let anyone work with him? That was just insulting.)

He exited the elevator on the common level to find Steve and Natasha sitting at the island, talking quietly about something. Tony was at the counter, crooning at his ludicrously temperamental coffee machine, coaxing it into giving him a cup of espresso. Tony denied it vehemently, but Bruce was convinced he’d installed some sort of AI in the thing, so it only worked if you were nice to it (or desperate enough, as it responded to Tony’s caffeine-withdrawal-induced begging well enough).

“Science Bro!” Tony called as soon as the elevator doors opened, grinning widely. “It’s been three days, I was starting to worry your lab assistant had staged a mutiny!”

Bruce has to smile back. “That’s hardly my fault, it’s _you_ that’s been absent for three days. Besides, my ‘lab assistant’ still thinks I’ll ‘Hulk Out’ if he so much as sneezes;  he’s unlikely to try and take over the lab.”

Steve looks up at him, making the ‘concerned parent’ face. “Has he done anything to make you uncomfortable?”

Bruce sighed. “No, no, nothing like that. I’m just so tired of being treated like -”

Tony, of course, has taken it upon himself to ‘cheer Bruce up’ - he sneaks up behind Bruce and pokes him in the side with his sparkler stick thing.

“Holy _shit,_ " Bruce curses and jumps, and suddenly Tony is _right_ in front of him. Tony peers at him, their noses an inch apart. “Uhm. Hi?”

" _Nothing_ ," Tony mutters, almost looking disappointed. “It’s almost _boring,_ how zen you are.” He straightens abruptly, and goes back to his coffee. Bruce glances at Steve and Natasha. Steve looks a bit constipated, like he wants to reprimand Tony, but isn’t quite sure he actually needs to. Natasha has her hand on her gun, but she’s relaxed and laughing silently.

Bruce shakes his head, not quite able to stifle his grin, and moves to the counter to turn the kettle on. He bumps Tony’s shoulder as he passes and mutters, “Don’t ever change.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Tony smile helplessly.

 

+++

 

A day later, Tony swans into his lab while Bruce is (once again) trying not to tear his hair out. Being a genius is, apparently, not enough to compensate for a lack of experience in manipulating vaccines - he understands the theory, probably better than the people who wrote the textbooks, but that didn’t make up for a lifetime of no experience with titrating and dilutions and pipetting and cloning cell lines and -

The constant trial and error was just pissing him off, he did _not_ have the patience for this.

Lab Assistant was no help either - his specialty was in applied physics. Generally, quite helpful, but not in this instance.

“Up and at ‘em, pookie,” Tony calls, clapping his hands sharply, “Chop chop, day’s a-wastin’!"

“What are we doing?” Bruce sighs, but eagerly strips off his gloves.

“Intern shopping!” he replies cheerfully, and Bruce can see Lab Assistant's face pale out of the corner of his eye. Tony holds out a sheaf of papers to him. “You’re being transferred. Go away.”

Lab Assistant tries to say something trite and clichéd along the lines of ‘honour to work with you’ and ‘enjoyed learning from you’, but can’t quite manage to hide his relief - not that Tony or Bruce can even pretend to be fooled.

“Can’t say I’m sorry to see him go,” Bruce sighs as soon as he's gone, feeling tension draining out of his shoulders, “It’ll be a lot more peaceful around here without another person.”

“Oh no,” Tony shakes his head, reaching out to push Bruce towards the elevators, “I wasn’t kidding about the intern-shopping. We’re going to get you a new one. A better one.”

“What? No!” Bruce sputtered, trying to stop, but Tony just kept going. “C’mon, Tony, your interns aren’t like… You can’t order one to fit your specifications and then go pick it up! This is an engineering company, Tony, you’re not going to find someone who knows more about vaccinology than the average high school biology class teaches!”

Tony just grinned widely. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

 

+++

 

Gwen crossed her arms and lifted one eyebrow, her toe tap-tap-tapping impatiently against the tile. She felt a now-familiar twinge of grief when she realized that she had adopted one of her father's favourite 'scolding positions', but pushed it away. Now was not the time to become a blubbering mess.

The gratification of seeing the other interns in her lab cower beneath the Dad Glare still wasn't enough to haul Gwen's mood back up from it's downswing.

She let them suffer for a few beats more, and then said, "Does anyone need me to tell them exactly what they're doing wrong here, or can we just move on to fixing it?"

The group of four mumbled various denials, turning back to the computer stations and shutting down the various video games and troll blogs littering the screens and - Jesus, was that one _porn?_ Gwen hoped they at least had the presence of mind to wipe their browser history - _really_ wipe it.

She groaned internally, stomping off to go yell at someone else. It wasn't like there was anything _useful_ for her to do around here. She was good at physics, and she understood software design - she was even all right at robotics. But that didn't mean she was _interested._ She felt bad about continuously asking for transfers - she had worked in nearly every department that Stark Industries' R &D offered, but she still hadn't found something that she honestly _enjoyed_ doing.

Gwen poked desultorily at a couple of simulations as she passed them, making sure everything was running smoothly, collecting all the appropriate data… God, she was bored out of her _mind._ She asked herself for the gagillionth time _why_ she'd let Peter and Mr. Stark talk her into abandoning her job at Oscorp - where she got to do interesting, life-changing, _relevant_ work - for Stark Industries - where she got to load data generated by thousands of models into graphs for analysis.

She decided right then and there that she was going to Peter's when she was done here, instead of home, so that she could yell at him for a while, and then she would let him pet her hair until she felt better. Maybe she would spend some time with Aunt May in the backyard, tending to the little flower beds…

Gwen was snapped out of her vague daydreams by a sudden, anticipatory silence.  She glances over at the entrance, and had to suppress her sigh. Mr. Stark 'dropping by' never made life any easier, even if he was never boring.

"There she is!" Mr. Stark's voice was obnoxious, as always, and everyone who hadn't been staring before is certainly staring now. Gwen can't stop her sigh this time.

"There she is! My favourite intern!" Gwen turns to find Mr. Stark grinning widely at her, Dr. Banner following unobtrusively behind him.

"Mr. Stark, a pleasure to see you, as always," she says dryly, feeling smile tuck itself into the corner of her mouth, "But you probably shouldn't have favourite interns. Bad for morale."

Mr. Stark waves her comments away dismissively. "Unimportant. What are you working on?"

"Unimportant," Gwen smirks, and Dr. Banner snorts quietly.

"Excellent!" Mr. Stark cries, apparently on the verge of bouncing up and down and clapping his hands with joy. "You're about to be kidnapped, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Gwen blinks. "I don't have a lot of experience with kidnappings, admittedly, but I think you're doing it wrong."

Mr. Stark's smile, somehow, grows. He gestures at Dr. Banner, saying, "I don't believe the two of you have had the chance to get to know each other."

Gwen's inner fan-girl does an embarrassingly high-pitched _squeee!_ but her voice is remarkably composed when she says, "Not really. Gwen Stacy," she sticks her hand out, "It's really an honour to meet you, Dr. Banner. I'm a big fan of your work." Mr. Stark and Dr. Banner share a conspiratorial smile at that, but obviously Gwen has missed the joke.

"Really?" Dr. Banner drawls, letting go of her hand almost more quickly than is strictly polite, though his grip had been firm. "I don't usually get a lot of that from the high-school crowd, no offense, Miss Stacy."

Gwen tried not to groan, or snap, or roll her eyes. She still doesn't manage a smile. "Yes, well. 'Usually' high school students don't work in laboratories pioneering genetic and biomedical engineering, so."

Dr. Banner's expression brightens, and he suddenly looks a whole lot more friendly. "You worked for Oscorp?"

"Yes." Gwen takes  a deep, considering breath, and flicks a gaze at Mr. Stark. He nods at her, so she continues, "I worked with Dr. Connors before… Y'know. The mutant lizard thing."

"Tell him what else you did," Mr. Stark prompts, interrupting whatever Dr. Banner was about to say. Gwen lifts her eyebrows at him, and he shrugs.

"Peter and I talk. A lot. Kid's a big talker, it's hard to get him to shut up sometimes."

Gwen rolls her eyes at him. "I also synthesized the antidote that returned all the… half-lizard people back to normal." She sees Dr. Banner's eyes widen, and hurries to explain. "Not that it was a big deal! I mean, the formula was already in the computer, and all I had to do was manipulate the binding domain of the proteins to be more generalized, it really wasn't… difficult." Dr. Banner is still smiling at her, wide-eyed, so she trails off.

"This is fantastic!" he crows, and Gwen flinches, surprised, but Dr. Banner doesn't notice. "Have you worked with vaccines before? Gene therapy? Manipulation of the immune system?"

"Uhm, yes?" Gwen says warily, really, really confused about what is going on right now.

"Would you like to come work in my lab, with me, instead of here?" Dr. Banner asks, and a chorus of angels begins singing and a beam of golden light falls on Dr. Banner and Gwen is _saved._

"God, yes, _please._ Can we start now?"


	2. Chapter 2

Gwen stirs feebly, becoming aware of her body by degrees with each vicious throb of her head. A shrill ringing in her ears drowns out every other sound, but she feels - for some reason - that it was very loud right now, wherever she was.

Why is she lying on the floor? Has she fallen out of bed?

 _'Oof!' the air left her chest in a rush as she thumped to the floor, having been tossed onto the bed a little too energetically, so that she bounced off the mattress and kept going, rolling onto the floor. She started giggling uncontrollably._  
 _'Gwen!'_ _Peter cried, and she opened her eyes in time to see him vault over the bed, and she was suddenly blanketed in warm superhero. She hummed, wriggling under him, and giggled a bit more. 'God, Gwen, I'm sorry! Are you okay?'_  
 _'I'm fine Peter, stop stressing,' she ran her hands up his sides, from his waist to his shoulders, and then pulled him in for a kiss.  
_ _They made out on the floor of her bedroom until Gwen fell asleep - when she woke up in the morning, she expected to be stiff and achy from a night on the ground. Instead, she found herself sprawled over Peter's chest -_

Gwen jerks, something having jarred her out of the pleasant daydream. She tries to stand, knowing that the longer she stays on the ground, the sorrier she'll be later.

How had she not woken herself up when she rolled onto the floor? Gwen was a pretty light sleeper and - Had she been asleep? When had she gone home?

Gwen struggles to focus, to remember where she is, but her head _really_ hurts now, and the more it hurts the more the rest of her hurts too. She remembers being in the lab with Dr. Banner… Peter had come by to say he was leaving to run some errands for Aunt May… She had placed another cell line in the incubator, and she and Dr. Banner argued about transient thymine dimerization until they finished… Did they finish? 

_Peter… Peter… Peter… Where was Peter?_

"Peter," she tries to say, to call out, but her voice scrapes out of her lungs and is caught in her voice-box and she chokes on the air.

Gwen opens her eyes.

She blinks rapidly, and eventually the floor in front of her nose comes into focus, slate grey tile, littered with plaster dust and assorted debris. She looks up, manages to lift her head a few inches off the ground, and finally gets a good look at where she is.

She's lying against the wall of an unfamiliar room, though the familiar colour scheme suggests she's still on the R&D floors of Stark Tower. A section of the ceiling is gone, collapsed inwards like a ramp, revealing the innards of the room above - Dr. Banner's lab. She'd been standing behind the lab bench now dangling over the edge of the hole, so she must have fallen through and been thrown against this wall, and -

Dr. Banner!

She tries to yell for him, for JARVIS, for anyone, but her voice refuses to cooperate, or maybe she just can't tell over the ringing in her ears - tinnitus. There must have been an explosion of some kind…

Gwen pushes herself to her feet, though she sways steeply several times before she's entirely vertical. She eventually makes it to standing, and her legs, though wobbly, support her. She forces herself to run her hands over herself, checking for injury - every couple of seconds she checks her hands, but she isn't bleeding. She checks over her head, finds the source of the throbbing. It's tender and swollen, but not bleeding either. Gwen's never had a concussion before, doesn't have any idea what they feel like, so she doesn't know… She can't tell… Concussion… How do you check for a concussion? How do you treat a concussion?

The only thing she can come up with is that she shouldn't sleep unsupervised, but that's not likely to happen.

The rush of adrenaline in her veins finally clears her head, and though the ringing persists, she can hear alarms blaring and a deep, rumbling growling over it.

"Dr. Banner!" she yells, and she thinks her voice manages to carry this time, though there's no response. 

 _Find Dr. Banner_ , her mind insists, so she takes a more careful look at where she is. From the angle the floor of the lab above is making with the floor of this lab, anything that fell through should have ended up where Gwen is now, and since Dr. Banner isn't down here he must be up there…

Gwen can picture Peter's distressed and exasperated reaction perfectly ( _Gwen! Stop with the running into danger, are you serious?!_ ), but it doesn't stop her from making her way carefully to the landslide of debris and scaffolding, using it to clamber back up into Dr. Banner's lab. She emerges, having only lost her footing once, and just flops onto a steady section of the floor to catch her breath.

She gives herself another 30 seconds to freak out and wish desperately that she was anywhere else right now, and then pushes herself up.

"Dr. Banner?" she calls, and something snarls in response.

The bottom of Gwen's stomach drops out, and she suddenly can't draw enough breath. 

 _'For example, nobody knows who the Hulk is.'  
_ _'Yes they do… about half the internet thinks that Bruce Banner is the Hulk, and the other half thinks that Banner created the Hulk, and keeps him locked up in this Tower…'_

Gwen exhales shakily. She'd been told about this, of course she had, multiple times - first in her orientation seminar, where she'd been informed that there were certain hazards associated with being in proximity to the Avengers, not the least of which was the Hulk. Then, when she'd started working with Dr. Banner personally, he'd had a conversation with her, saying that even though he had 'The Other Guy' under control, that didn't mean he was _safe,_ and that she should just keep that in mind. He'd told her that, if there was ever an 'Incident', she was supposed to leave as quickly and quietly as possible, stay out of sight and get far, _far_ away before calling the rest of the Avengers to tell them what had happened, if they didn't already know.

But…

Gwen had seen news coverage of various Avengers fights, and sat through Peter's blow-by-blow analysis of their 'moves' and strategy… The Hulk wasn't a _thinker,_ he reacted more instinctually than others… His first instinct after an explosion that took out the room he had been in _should_ have been to get away from the loud noise and fire and flying projectiles… And he definitely wasn't stealthy enough to have beaten his way out of the rubble without attracting Gwen's attention, or leaving a trail of ruin in his wake…

So where is he? And why isn't he appearing?

Gwen takes a series of deep breaths, feebly trying to talk herself down, convince herself to leave… But she knew she was going to stay, and try to find Dr. Banner.

"Oh boy," she mutters, and takes a couple creeping steps forward. The ceilings of several floors above the lab seemed to have collapsed downwards in a series that ended on the floor she had landed on - Gwen was _seriously_ lucky she hadn't fallen any farther.

The debris on this floor obscured most of Gwen's view of the lab, and she edges around the sheet of tile and wiring slowly, trying not to make any sound as she goes.

As soon as she clears the edge of the block, she freezes, swallowing down the swears that want to come bubbling out of her throat.

There is the Hulk, so much larger than she had ever realized, grotesquely green and swollen with muscle. The scientist corner of her brain was frantically screaming about the Law of Conservation of Mass - how did all of that _fit_ inside Dr. Banner? - but it was strangely quiet behind the blank panic of the rest of her mind.

Panic, because it was immediately obvious why the Hulk hadn't busted his way out of here to lay waste to New York in a fit of rage.

One of the large, steel, load-bearing beams from the ceiling had fallen on the Hulk, pinning him in place - it would have been child's play for him to lift, if not for the piece of rebar, soldered to the steel beam, that had pierced through the thick muscle of his thigh.

Gwen had seen footage of the Hulk being shot, over and over, his thick hide pelted by bullet after bullet that never pierced him - the metal must have gone through _Dr. Banner's_ leg, and been carried along when he was replaced by the Hulk…

Does the Hulk have accelerated healing abilities? If she yanked the piece of metal out of his leg, would the thigh muscle restitch itself around the wound? Or would he bleed out from a ruptured femoral artery before he had the chance?

… Were the Hulk's blood vessels in the same spots?

She exhaled harshly, apparently loud enough to be heard, because supernaturally green eyes locked on her. The Hulk's growl vibrated through the floor, and fragments of plaster littered around Gwen's shoes jumped and shivered. Gwen had never wanted to run so bad in her life.

 _Please don't kill me, please don't kill me… She would be whispering it to herself, except she couldn't run the chance of Dr. Conners - the thing - hearing her and finding her faster. He was going to find her, she had no delusions. If he is as reptilian as Peter says, his sense of smell is going to be her downfall -_  
 _Please don't kill me, please don’t kill me… She'd considered hiding the machine in a different cupboard than herself, but if the scent trail to the machine wasn't strong enough, and he had come for her first…  
_ _Oh, God, Peter please hurry up…_

She swallows heavily, and eases a few more steps forward. The tenor of the Hulk's growl doesn't change, so she keeps moving, careful to always be in sight.

"Dr. Banner?" she tries, aiming for a soothing, hypnotic tone. He snarls, so she assumes it didn't work. Or, maybe…

"Er, Hulk?" the growling cuts off abruptly, "Hulk, do you know who I am?"

He eyes her silently for a long time, long enough that Gwen decides to risk moving closer.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I _promise,"_ she croons, holding her arms out, hands open, "Do you know who I am?"

He is quiet for several long seconds, and then grunts, "Gwen."

She smiles widely at him, trying to hide the trembling in her fingers. "Yes, yes, very good. My name _is_ Gwen. I'm happy to meet you."

The Hulk twists his face into something she thinks might be an approximation of a smile. "Gwen. Pretty hair. Help little Bruce."

She hiccups, choking on a giggle. "Yes, exactly. I help Dr. Banner, I'm his friend."

He looks at her, and she can't quite decipher his expression, though she thinks it might be… appraising. "Pretty Gwen. Friend. Help little Bruce. Gwen help Hulk too?"

"Yes," she whispers, and then clears her throat. "Yes," she repeats, louder, "I will help you, too."

The Hulk is pinned on his back by the beam, and has been lifting his head to stare at her. Now, he lets it flop back down to the floor, where it connects with a dull thud.

"Hulk is hurt," he mutters morosely, "Little Bruce hurt too. Hulk can't fix. Need friends."

"I know," Gwen whispers - she is mere feet from his head now, and knows he can hear her, "And I'm sure they're coming to help you, Hulk. Until then," she settles down by his head, sitting cross-legged, "Maybe I can be your friend." She reaches out, hand still shaking, and tentatively strokes some hair off his forehead. Her hand looks impossibly tiny next to his head. 

Hulk rolls his head to the side to look at her. "Hulk likes Pretty Gwen."

She sighs heavily, telling herself that it _isn't_ a sob, not even a little bit. "I like you too, Hulk."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I should probably mention, this whole work (and the last one) is un-betaed, so if you see any errors/inconsistencies, please do let me know! And let me know what you thought, I love hearing from readers, your comments really and truly make my day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. GUYS. GUUUUUYYS. This story has been up for like, a week, and there's already over a hundred kudos on it - thank you thank you thank you UGH you guys are the greatest ever. Extra squishy thanks to everyone who stepped up for some impromptu beta-ing on the last chapter, you are awesome!
> 
> I'm pretty sure this chapter ends in a better place than the last did, but in case you don't agree, the other half (which follows immediately after this one ends) will be up either tomorrow (if I get my ass in gear) or on Monday, because I will be out of town this weekend.

Peter had been home for while by the time he heard the news about the attack on Stark Tower.

He was in the backyard, weeding out Aunt May’s tomato patch – sweat rolled annoyingly off the edge of his nose, driven by the relentless sun. He could feel even his super-hero-awesome muscles stiffening from the prolonged kneeling and bending. God, gardening was the _worst_.

Peter heard the _clack-clackity-rrrrrrrrring_ of a plate colliding with the floor, and then the soft _smack_ of Aunt May’s hand slapping down on the counter. He looked up, staring at the kitchen window as though it would suddenly start speaking to him, telling him what had happened. When he strained, his enhanced hearing could pick up the indistinct burr of a news report, but beyond that…

He launched himself to standing, dusting off his jeans and hands perfunctorily, heading for the door.

Peter froze, locked up between reaching a hand out for Aunt May’s shoulder and opening his mouth to ask what was wrong.

It was immediately obvious what was wrong.

Stark Tower was being attacked by more of those flying robotic nightmares from a few weeks ago – the news report was referring to them as ‘Doom Bots’, but Peter couldn’t tell whether that was meant to be facetious or if someone was under the (mistaken) impression that that was a valid name for an army of killer robots.

The mirror-and-chrome faces of the Tower were entirely obscured by a writhing swarm of the things, and occasionally Peter caught glimpses of Iron Man’s crimson and gold, and squirming bolts of lightning off Mjӧlnir. Every so often, ‘bots would fall out of the pack for no discernible reason, so Peter assumed that Hawkeye was up a ‘tree’ somewhere, being all sneaky and deadly.

Peter didn’t expect to see the Captain and Widow, land-bound as they were, but the absence of the Hulk was immediately obvious and worrying… Had something happened to him or Bruce?

Oh, God, _Gwen_.

Peter fumbled his phone out of his pocket, dialling her number frantically. She was fine, she had to be fine, she’d probably made it out in the first wave of evacuations, no way would-

No way would Gwen _leave_ before she was sure she had gotten as many people out as possible.

The phone rang out again and again.

Peter was out the door before he could make the conscious decision to move – he certainly wasn’t careful about closing it behind him, and only spared a brief thought to hoping he hadn’t shattered the glass again. He considered grabbing his skateboard, but it would be faster to run.

He’d forgotten that he wasn’t wearing the suit, didn’t even think about grabbing it – he outstripped cars on the street, drawing incredulous stares and many honks, but he couldn’t stop now, it panicked him to slow down, but he needed to keep his cover, but he didn’t _care_ because _Gwen-_

Peter rounded the corner onto a crowded street, lined with shops and gawking tourists – there were too many people, too many cameras, he couldn’t go _through_ without going _over_ , but the constant paranoia was too much to shake right then… He lurched himself into an alley, where he crashed into a brick wall with a sickening _crunch_.

His hands gripped immediately to the rough surface of the wall, and Peter threw himself upwards, turning the momentum of his collision into an upwards leap – he made it to the top of the building in two jumps.

He ran, flying over the gaps between buildings like they weren’t even there, using telephone wires and construction cables to carry himself along when there weren’t buildings available – he couldn’t _believe_ he’d not worn the web shooters, today of all days, but he hadn’t had webs in the earliest Spiderman days, and he didn’t need them now, he just needed to _move faster._

He returned his feet to the ground when he was within a few blocks of Stark Tower – the other buildings here were too tall, and he didn’t want to come down _on top of_ Stark Tower, not without his webs and the suit. Trying to push his way through the crowds on the street was beyond excruciating, as New Yorkers flocked to the police barriers, eager to watch the fight go down – eventually, their self-preservation would drive them away, but for now, they were desperate for a good show.

It took Peter a lot longer than he was used to, to get over the police barriers – he couldn’t exactly tell them “Hi, I’m Peter Parker, and my girlfriend is Gwen Stacy, who is the daughter of the late Captain Stacy of the 19th precinct, and I’m also the superhero sometimes known as Spiderman, and I really think you should let me through, because Gwen isn’t picking up her phone, and that bothers me.”

They didn’t let him through when he flashed his Stark Industries ID and told them he was helping with the evacuation, saying they had everything under control and a kid like him was only going to get in the way.

He eventually had to resort to a duck-and-run when the constable in his way turned to respond to shouted orders from his Captain.

Peter careened into the front doors, which, luckily, gave beneath his weight before the glass shattered, because that would have been really embarrassing to try and explain to Tony – “Yeah, sorry I broke your door, I was just freaking out a little bit because Gwen wouldn’t pick up her phone. You know how it is.”

The lobby wasn’t as empty as he assumed it would be – he found the up-‘til-now-MIA Captain America and Black Widow, along with Agent Coulson. They had apparently made the lobby their base of operations, which seemed like a bad idea at first, considering they were _literally in the exact middle of the fight_ , but Stark Tower was by far the most stable building in the area, with supports for the upper floors that extended all the way down into the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the building. Crashes and explosions that would have shaken other buildings were barely detectable vibrations in Stark Tower.

Widow was the first to look up at his less-than-graceful entrance, giving him the I-Am-So-Unimpressed-By-Your-Existence eyebrow, but didn’t say or do anything to try and actively expel him from the scene. She left that to the good Captain.

Captain America frowned at him, not looking even a little but pleased to see him here, which, c’mon, just because they thought he was too young for Space Alien Invasions and Weirdo Magical Bullshit didn’t mean he wasn’t actually (occasionally) _useful_. But no, Captain I-Know-What’s-Best-For-Everyone was going to be all ‘What are you doing here, Peter?’ and ‘It isn’t safe here, Peter’ and ‘You should go home, Peter’.

“What are you doing here, Peter?” the Captain snapped, not letting up on his Disappointed Frown, “It isn’t safe.”

Peter: 2; Captain Stick-Up-His-Ass: 0.

“Gwen isn’t answering her phone,” Peter replied, “I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and help, if I can.”

“I’m sure she’s fine, Peter,” he sighed in response, turning back to the table covered in papers and blueprints.

“What do you _mean_ , ‘You’re sure she’s fine’!” Peter asked incredulously, stalking up to the table to glare at the Avengers at point-blank range. “Nobody’s seen her? Isn’t there, like, a roll-call for evacuees?”

Nobody said anything; nobody _looked at him_ , for several long seconds.

Eventually, Agent Coulson spoke up. “There is,” he said blankly, looking at Peter with an equally blank (android-like) expression, “She’s not on it.”

The bottom of Peter’s stomach dropped out, and for the first time since becoming Spiderman, he felt like he couldn’t get enough air. Of course, _of motherhugging course,_ Gwen wasn’t on the list of people who made it out of the building, because Gwen, stupid, beautiful, brave, and noble _Gwen_ , wouldn’t have _left_ the building if there was anyone left stuck in the building, especially if they were in her area… Her lab…

“Where’s Dr. Banner? Didn’t he make it out?” Peter asked, then remembering the conspicuous lack of Hulk in the fight outside, “Didn’t the Other Guy make it out?”

“We haven’t seen Bruce or the Hulk since before the attack.”

Peter felt sick, dizzy, the base of his skull practically on fire with the heavy tingling of his Spidey-sense. Something was wrong, very, very wrong, very, very high above Peter’s head, and it was _beyond_ distracting to fight back the urge to tip his head back and stare at the ceiling until it gave up all its secrets…

“What aren’t you guys telling me?” Peter demands, and is rewarded by several shifty glares, “I can tell you’re hiding something, stop _lying_ to me! Where. Is. Gwen?”

“The first wave of attacks took out several of the Tower’s Research and Development floors,” Agent No-Expression said, “Dr. Banner’s lab is on one of the affected floors.

Peter felt like he was frozen, like he was suspended in mid-air, with nothing to hold onto, no frame of reference, nothing to anchor himself to. He felt like he was frozen, but he must have been moving, because next thing he knew, he was digging his fingers into the groove between the heavy elevator doors, pulling them apart, just enough for his (admittedly skinny) frame to squeeze through – he pushed off the floor with one foot, launching himself into the shaft, and seized hold of the elevator cables. Luckily for Peter, the Tower’s emergency protocols meant that the elevators were parked down in the lowest basement level as soon as the Tower was damaged, so they couldn't cause _more_ damage by falling uncontrollably later. He pulled himself up a couple of feet, trying to use his feet to grip at the cables and push off, but his efforts were less than successful.

“Teach you to leave the house without your web-slingers again, Pete,” he grumbled, pulling himself up again. This was going to be hell on his shoulders and arms by the time he made it up… all the way up… Freakin’ Tony Stark and his overcompensating, mid-life-crisis phallic symbol.

“Peter!” Someone yelled, and Peter almost lost his grip on the cables when he flinched away from the unexpected and _loud_ echoes. Way to crap out at a pivotal moment, Spidey-sense.

“Peter, stop! You can’t go up there! What are you thinking?”

Peter glanced down, and saw Captain America leaning through the gap he’d left open in the elevator doors, blocked from entering by his massive shoulders. He heaved on the doors, and with far less effort than was entirely fair, managed to pull them all the way open.

“I’m thinking that someone needs to check that everyone in the labs made it out okay! It doesn’t worry you that no one’s seen the Hulk? Isn’t he like, indestructible? Shouldn’t he have brushed off the explosion like it was a mild inconvenience, and gone out bot-smashing?” The Captain was looking up and down the elevator shaft, eyeing the cable critically, as though he was imagining how much effort it would take to climb up and pull Peter down – Peter was thinking _lots_ , because muscle is _heavy_ , and Captain America was basically pure muscle held together by patriotism and moral fibre.

“Peter, we’ll talk care of it,” the Captain said placatingly (patronizingly, like Peter was a misbehaving puppy), “Just come out of there and let-"

“Let the professionals handle it?” Peter scoffed.

Captain America pulled back, out of sight, and was quickly replaced by the Black Widow, who could (and would) climb up the shaft and drag him back down.

“Oh, shit,” Peter muttered, before launching and shimmying his way about twenty feet higher up the cable before Widow was able to get a good grip on it. As soon as she starting climbing, Peter dropped, spinning around the cable (like a stripper around a pole) to give himself a little extra _push_ –

He let go of the cable, flying feet first at the wall of the elevator shaft, connecting only a foot or two above the Black Widow, who cursed when he came flying out of the darkness straight at her. Peter pushed off the wall, flying up through the air, grabbing a conveniently placed pipe when his acceleration began to decrease. He planted his feet against the wall and jumped again, this time encountering a wide cross-beam to grab, which he swung around to propel another jump. He leapt again and again, vastly outstripping the Black Widow, which meant he could once again pull himself up via the cable whenever there weren’t pipes or support bars along the wall to grab.

Peter lost count somewhere around speeding past floor 60, so he was completely guessing when he stopped at some arbitrary door to pull it open. It was _much_ harder to open elevator doors from the inside – definitely harder than it had looked in that James Bond movie.

“Woah, not the right door!”

Drywall and ceiling tiles and I-beams had fallen against the elevator doors, and Peter nudged them tentatively before the groaning and creaking drove him to stop. He cleared just enough of the debris from the ground to determine that it was the same slate-grey tile that covered all the lab floors before resuming his climb. The next door he tried was in a similar state, though not as much debris. Still, Peter climbed up four more floors before he found a level clear enough to enter safely.

He poked around a few piles of paper and peeked in a few filing cabinets, before figuring out that this was Dr. Thomas’ lab, a biomedical engineering lab, and he was two floors above Dr. Banner – and, hopefully, Gwen.

Peter lowered himself carefully over the edge of the hole in the floor, and swung himself gently back and forth, building momentum. He let go at the apex of his forward swing, aiming for a clear section of tile in the lab below, well back from the damage. He stuck his landing perfectly, sinking into a deep crouch. He scrambled over to hole that would take him to Dr. Banner’s lab, this time leaning over it so he could see inside – sort of. Peter thought he could see one of the Hulk’s feet sticking out from behind a sheet of drywall wedged vertically between the ceiling and the floor. So Dr. Banner had transformed, then, but for some reason wasn’t moving…

“Gwen? Gwen, are you there?” he called, not even pretending to hide the desperation in his voice. The Hulk growled softly, and the leg that Peter could see twitched spastically, but didn’t go anywhere.

“Peter! Peter, is that you?”

Peter almost collapsed in relief on the spot, but managed to restrict himself to a manic grin.

“Yeah, yeah, Gwen, I’m here, hoooo boy this has been a day, hasn’t it? Are you both okay?”

“I’m fine,” Gwen replied, and Peter’s heart finally stopped trying to leap out of his throat, “I’m okay, Peter, but Hulk isn’t… I don’t think. I don’t – It’s hard to tell,” she finished weakly.

“Is the floor stable? Can I come down?” Peter was already clambering over the edge of the hole.

“It was sturdy enough when I climbed up here,” Gwen said dryly, which was enough to have Peter launching himself into the lab, cutting through the air to land just beyond the Hulk’s foot.

The Hulk roared when he appeared, scrambling to rise from his prone position on the floor. Peter scrambled back, hands in the air.

“Woah buddy, okay easy! I understand, I _totally_ violated your personal space,” Peter babbled, trying to keep his voice even, “That was a total dick move, very not cool on my part, I’m sorry. Please, don’t get up on my account.”

Hulk continued to grumble, but eventually settled back down, though he didn’t lower his head. Gwen smiled at him weakly from behind the Hulk, where she was sitting cross-legged. If the Hulk had laid his head down, it would have been in her lap, which is where he must have been before Peter had (so rudely) interrupted.

The poor guy was clearly having a rough day – there was a twisted metal rod stabbed through his thigh, keeping him pinned in place.

“Hulk, do you recognize Peter? Do you know who he is? I promise, he isn’t going to hurt us,” Gwen was saying soothingly, trying to coax him back down.

Hulk glowered, but still answered. “Follows little Tony. Visits pretty Gwen. Little Bruce likes Peter.”

“Thanks, big guy,” Peter grinned, easing a couple steps closer, “Pretty Gwen there is also my girlfriend. Do you think maybe I could say hi?”

The Hulk grunted. Peter took that as a… yes? He didn’t try to Hulk-Smash Peter when he came closer though, so Peter was going to count that as a win.

He crouched down at Gwen’s side, grinning widely, relief still heady in his veins.

“Hey you,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her softly.

“Hey yourself,” she replied, leaning into him. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, gladly taking some of her weight. He pressed his nose into her hair, breathing in the mint and Roccal scent of her.

“So, today sucks,” Gwen muttered, and Peter snorted.

“Tell me about it,” he agreed.

“I was first responder in a Hulk-first-aid emergency,” Gwen said petulantly, making Peter’s smile widen, “To which _nobody else responded_.”

“I climbed up eighty five floors in an elevator shaft,” Peter replied, trying to smother the amusement in his voice.

Gwen pulled away from him to glare. “I got _blown up_.”

“All right, all right!” Peter laughed, throwing his hands up in defeat, “You win! I concede; your day sucks worse!”

“Of course it does,” Gwen sniffed, before leveling him with a disbelieving look, “Did you seriously come here without the suit or the web-shooters?”

Peter pouted. “I may have been in a little bit of a hurry, okay?”

Gwen rolled her eyes at him, but she was smiling. “Well, you’re pretty much useless without them,” she teased, “But luckily for you, I still have the extra set you made me carry for you last week in my bag.”

Peter had to kiss her again. “You’re perfect. Like, _literally_ perfect. Have I mentioned that lately?”

“You can write odes to my perfection when you get us out of here, Bug Boy. I stowed my bag in the lab bench in the corner.”

Peter kissed her again, once more, twice more, okay, _three more times,_ that’s it, and then ran for the bag. He had to dig the lab bench out (and then dig another lab bench out) (Gwen was _really bad_ at directions), but he found the bag and his spare set of web-shooters, which he strapped around his wrists.

“Okay,” he said, beginning to clear a path from the incapacitated Hulk (who had allowed Gwen to resume stroking his hair) to the elevator, “I’m gonna run lines down to Captain America and Black Widow in the lobby, and then I’m going to come back up to make sure that everyone else got out of the labs okay, and then I’ll be back to check on you guys, okay?”

“Okay,” Gwen agreed, smiling at him. “Go get ‘em, tiger. We’ll be fine here.”

Peter anchored two webs inside the elevator shaft, securing them around support beams (making sure that the one for the Captain was _extra_ sturdy). He turned back to Gwen, saluting her and the Hulk cheekily, and then tipped himself down the shaft.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, I am the worst kind of human being, I am so sorry. This is beyond late. It's pretty long though... Yay? On a happier note, you guys are seriously the most wonderful readers in the world, and never let anyone tell you any different ;)

He fell down through the inky black, levels flashing past him much faster than he had passed them on his way up – his heightened senses were more than up to the task of keeping track, but counting the doors was getting a little bit dizzying, so he relied on instinct and the faint glow from the open doors at the lobby level to tell him when to sto-

“Holy shit!”

His senses were _screaming_ at him, and he screeched to a stop about thirty floors up, inches away from a deadly collision with the Black Widow – not because the collision would have killed either of them, but she _definitely_ would have eaten him alive for crashing into her.

They blinked at each other, before Widow snorted.

“I guess you don’t need rescuing, then?”

“Uh, no? I don’t think so,” Peter joked weakly, and then coughed when he failed to elicit any kind of response from the Russian Super Spy. He held out one of his web-lines meekly. “Would this help you climb faster? Dr. Banner, uh the Hulk, uh, _they_ need help.”

Widow’s face got (somehow) stonier, and she grabbed the web from him. He spooled more out as she wrapped it around herself, fashioning a make-shift harness. She took the line in her hands, braced her feet against the wall, and then _ran straight up the freaking wall_.

Peter shook his head, resuming his drop to ground level.

He swung into the lobby, startling Captain America and Agent. The Captain stepped forward.

“Widow went after you, is she-“

“She’s fine, Captain, I met her on my way down,” Peter cut him off, holding out the line that was still in his hand. “She’s still climbing up. The Hulk needs help. You good to climb up too?”

The Captain blinked at him, bemused, but didn’t hesitate to step forward and grab the web.

_Peter_ hesitated suddenly. “Uh, dude… Are you like, actually good at climbing? Would it be faster for you to super-soldier up the stairs or something?”

Captain America _rolled his eyes at Peter_ (Peter was pretty sure that meant that somewhere out there kittens were dying). “Is your web strong enough to hold me up?”

Oh, _shit_ , what if they weren’t? What if he _dropped Captain America_?

“Uh… Yes.” He finally said, decisively. Fake it ‘til you make it. Agent Coulson didn’t look particularly reassured, but the Captain marched forward, past Peter, like he was just going to grab the line and _go_. Peter sighed, rolling his eyes (only because the Captain wasn’t looking) and followed behind him, looping a harness around his (ridiculously broad) chest, anchoring it in his suit and belt. The Captain jumped readily into the shaft, swinging a bit to get a feel for the rope before planting his feet against the wall like Widow did, and beginning to climb. He wasn’t as impressively fast as she was, but he did all right for such a massive human being.

Peter watched him for a few seconds, and then turned back to the SHIELD agent.

“Who else isn’t on the attendance list?”

+++

Peter took great joy in catching up to and zipping past Captain America dizzingly fast, moving much quicker through the levels with the help of his webs – maybe the Captain could use them as extra hand-holds on his way up.  

He didn’t catch up to Widow as quickly as he thought he was going to, because apparently she didn’t, like, _get tired_. Oh man, he wanted to be the Black Widow when he grew up.

“Uh…” he mumbled, crawling behind her, trying to decide if he would lose his head for offering her a lift – again. He didn’t want her to think he was trying to make a habit of it, or anything.

“Spit it out, Parker,” she snapped, not slowing her climbing.

“Erm. Not that you’re not, you know, really freaking excellent at this climbing thing, because you are! You totally are, and you could probably enter competitions and things, all the competitions, and win them! But uh…”

“Parker,” she growled, and even without the accompanying glare, Peter shivered. “Get to the point, or I will be forced to assume you’re hovering in order to get a good look at my ass.”

Peter _meep_ ed, mortification closing his throat around a much more embarrassing sound. He scrambled up so he was climbing alongside her instead and took a deep breath.

“You’re not super-human. Probably. It’d be faster if I uh… Carried you. Sorry.”

She eyed him disdainfully, before huffing and rolling her eyes. She stuck an arm out, and he slid himself underneath her so she could cling to his back again.

“Uh, hold on?”

Peter launched two webs up the shaft, feeling them connect with a reassuringly firm jerk. He pulled back, walking several steps back down the wall. He leaned into the stretch, adjusting his trajectory for Widow’s added weight and drag, and let go. Peter launched them through the building as quickly as he could – if he never saw this elevator again, it’d be too soon.

Before long, they were back at Banner’s lab, the open elevator doors marking the correct level. Peter jumped through, careful to make enough noise that Hulk would know he was about to receive another visitor. He still roared when Peter and Widow landed, but he didn’t try to leap for them.

Gwen was looking a little paler, a little less vivid, but still raised an eyebrow at Peter, flicking a significant glance at the voluptuous red-head climbing off him. He felt himself flush from cheeks to chest, and darted forward. Hulk let him approach with only a half-hearted growl, so he knelt beside Gwen again.

“I’m sorry, I can explain, I love you,” he muttered, trying to hide a slightly hysterical grin. Gwen just rolled her eyes at him.

“I know. Go. Save some people,” she said, jerking her chin to gesture at the rest of the building. Peter grinned (his girlfriend was psychic _and_ gorgeous) and hurried for the door, noting Widow slowly approaching the prone Hulk, hands outstretched and body loose, though the crinkle under her eye suggested it was hard for her to even pretend to be so unguarded.

Peter paused in a relatively undamaged vestibule, tugging the papers Agent Coulson had given him out of his jeans. The top pages were – thankfully – schematics of the damaged lab floors. He was currently in an emergency air-lock room, set up to decontaminate and isolate any lab workers in case of a leak – it had a door with access to the stairwell, giving him access to the undamaged floors above Dr. Banner’s.

Two people in the lab two floors above were unaccounted for, so he started there.

He nudged the door open, wary of the possibility of pervasive loss of structural integrity from the attacks. Nothing creaked, and he couldn’t feel any ominous-tingling vibrations through the floor, so Peter entered the lab.

“Uh, hello? Dr. Foster, are you still in here?”

Somebody female whooped, their voice coming from the bank of windows to Peter’s left – he started to preen, ready to be adored by the ‘damsels in distress’, as was his due –

“Way to go, MewMew!” the voice continued, obviously oblivious to Peter’s presence, “Look at that, Janey, your treasonous alien sort-of-prince has taken out like, a bagillion of those Mr. Roboto things! That’s, like, _way_ more than anyone else, don’t even worry about it.”

“Thanks, Darce,” another woman replied, just as Peter rounded a line of whiteboards covered in an mostly-incomprehensible combination of calculations of planetary orbit and relative gravity in deep space… and Nyan Cat cartoons.

“Because my number one source of distress,” continued the second woman, a petite brunette with gigantic doe eyes, “in our current situation was that my boyfriend might be smashing fewer bad guys than his friends are.”

The younger woman (who had a _fantastic_ rack, holy crap, _holy crap_ , Peter, don’t _look_ , Jesus) turned to face her friend, giving her the finger-guns.

“Hey, you know me Jane, ever the realist – Who are you?” she cried, turning the playful finger guns into an accusatory point, right at Peter. He stuck his hands up automatically.

“Woah, hey, no one, really, I am a _total_ nobody, don’t worry about it,” he babbled, sufficiently distracted from his purpose here.

The tiny woman –who had to be Jane Foster – crossed her arms. “What are you doing here? It isn’t exactly safe.”

“Uh, yeah,” Peter drawled, “I had noticed. There’s an evacuation order for the building? I don’t know if _you_ noticed, but SHIELD noticed when the two of you didn’t make it out.”

“Yeah, man, we know, but then Dr. Banner had a…” the young girl – Darcy Lewis, according to his list – paused, miming an explosion with her hands, “You know. Unanticipated growth spurt. We decided avoiding a Hulky-Smashy party sounded like the appropriate call, self-preservation-wise.”

“Who are you?” Dr. Foster asked, eyeing him narrowly, “Do you work here? Did you get trapped here, too?”

“Uh, in reverse order, no, yes, and Peter Parker,” he smiled widely, “And I guess you could say I’m your ride.”

“Oh!” Lewis cried, bouncing up and down (don’t look, _don’t look_ ) with glee, “You’re _Spiderman_! Uh,” she froze suddenly, looking sheepish, “Which I don’t actually know. At all. Spiderman who? Never heard of him before!”

Dr. Foster ignored Lewis, so Peter decided to follow her lead.

“Thor told me – us – about you,” she said, “He likes you. Something about ‘There is the heart of the finest Ӕsir warriors inside the little Midgardian Spider’, which is definitely a complement.”

“Really?” Peter said, trying to sound skeptical, even though he was sure the hope is his voice was more than apparent.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Lewis agreed, bobbing her head, “I mean, it took forever for us to explain the whole ‘Age of Consent’ to him.” She shrugged with a wry smile. “I guess immortals have a difficult time grasping our petty mortal ideas of age.”

Peter fidgeted, feeling the familiar wriggle of shame and anger at the reminder of his last meeting with the Avengers.

“Yeah, well…” he coughed uncomfortably, “Anyway. Evacuating? Do you ladies want a lift, or are you enjoying the show?”

“I could leave,” Lewis said cheerfully, bouncing over to Peter, holding her hand out, “Darcy Lewis.”

“Nice to meet you,” Peter smiled, cursing the faint blush he could feel on his neck – he would never get used to pretty girls looking twice at him. “It’s wonderful to meet you as well, Dr. Foster. I thought your response to the Higgs-Boson paper took a really unique perspective on the circular nature of the space-time duality.”

Dr. Foster blinked at him. “Thank you, Peter. It’s nice to know that I have fans.”

Lewis rolled her eyes. “Oh God, nerd alert. Can we be rescued first? I’ve almost reached my Science Quota for the day, I’m going to break out in hives soon.”

Peter grinned, and beckoned them back to the stairwell. He paused on the landing, and consulted his schematics again.

“Okay, so, we have two options here,” he pointed down the stairs, “This is the interior emergency stairwell, which is, reportedly, clear and structurally sound, and will take you all the way down to ground level. Or, we can go through Dr. Banner’s lab, which is the closest floor with a clear elevator shaft and I’ll carry you down that way. Fair warning, we’re going to pass by a very injured, very angry Hulk, and I’ll have to leave one of you there while I carry the other down, but-“

“Option Two doesn’t involve thousands of stairs,” Darcy drawled, sniffing disdainfully even though she looked a little paler. “I’ll take Option Two.”

Jane nodded, jaw locked at a stubborn angle. “Me too. But you’re carrying Darcy down first.”

Darcy protested, but Peter wasn’t interested – he knew better than to argue with That Look. He opened the door to Dr. Banner’s lab, surveying the room to find very little had changed. The Hulk was growling even though Gwen stroked his hair as Widow examined his leg carefully, pressing her tiny, delicate hands gently around the wound.

Peter beckoned Darcy and Dr. Foster into the room just as Captain America clambered out of the elevator shaft.

“Stars and Stripes!” Darcy called, prompting a louder and more energetic growl from the Hulk, and glares from the two women trying to keep him down. She looked slightly sheepish.

“Miss Lewis,” the Captain nodded at her.

Darcy opened her mouth to reply, but Dr. Foster stabbed her sharply in the side with two fingers, smiling beatifically at Captain America. Dr. Foster pushed Darcy hurriedly towards the elevator, and Peter followed before he could be pulled along like an unruly child.

Peter kept one eye on Gwen as he tied harnesses for Darcy and Dr. Foster out of webbing – she kept her gaze steady on him, smiling slightly.

He tied himself another harness, and Dr. Foster helped tie Darcy to his back – he wasn’t going to assume she would be as capable of holding on as the Black Widow.

It was only the work of a few minutes to carry both women down the elevator shaft, though Peter was getting _really_ sick of it.

He set Dr. Foster gently on her feet in the lobby, helping to untangle her from the webbing.

“Ah, Dr. Foster!” Agent Coulson greeted, looking like he might be thinking about looking relieved, “It’s good to see you safe and sound. We’ve notified Thor of your ah, _rescue_ , and he is ‘most pleased to hear of my Lady Jane’s wellbeing’.”

Dr. Foster blushed faintly, while Darcy rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’s my cue then!” Peter said cheerfully, saluting the two women, which Darcy responded to by pretending to faint, fanning herself frantically. “I’m off to evacuate some more people.”

It was another sweaty, thankless, half-hour’s work to clear the rest of the people he could find. The five other missing people from the undamaged floors were trapped in a cold storage room and easily freed. He couldn’t go digging through the rubble on the damaged floors to find the people buried there without risking causing a secondary collapse, but there were three people easily freed, and he didn’t hesitate to carry them out of the wreckage, even though two of them were less than completely unconscious during their free-fall elevator ride.

He made it back to Gwen, covered in rubble and dust and blood from the woman with a punctured lung. He collapsed beside her, ignoring the arguing Cap and Widow for a moment, just letting his head sag into her shoulder. He put a hand on the Hulk’s shoulder, patting it gently, feeling the rippling muscles unwind a bit under his hand. Gwen hummed softly, the beginnings of a lullaby forming in her throat. Hulk muttered along, some part of him recognizing the melody. Peter grinned; if he’d had the energy, he’d have filmed the Hulk singing ‘Rock-A-Bye Baby’ – he’d have been internet famous within the hour.

Peter peered at the other superheroes through his fringe, surprised at how sharp the two were being with each other. Even his slightly enhanced hearing couldn’t pick up on what they were saying, but their body language was beginning to edge towards ‘hostile’.

“What are they arguing about?” Peter murmured in Gwen’s ear, flicking a glance at the Hulk when she looked at him. She nodded, lips pinching into a thin line.

“Widow wants to try and get a helicopter through the battle so that they can bring SHIELD EMS in here. The Captain wants to wait until the fight has died down outside so they can try airlifting him down from outside. “

That sounded like a lot of work to Peter.

“That sounds like a lot of work,” he said to Gwen, leaning back a little. “I mean, I’m not as well read on emergency medical protocols as I should be, but it’s totally possible to make it safe enough to just carry Dr. Banner down, isn’t it?”

“Not if the rebar shifts when he’s shrinking, Peter,” Gwen chides, but there’s a thoughtful furrow in her brow.

“So we cut it free of the beam, and tie it to his leg. If we tie it right and someone pulls both ends of the ropes as he shrinks, it should stay in place well enough. And then I carry him down. It took less than two minutes to get Darcy _and_ Dr. Foster down. I just evacuated ten people in half an hour. We can do it without him losing too much more blood.”

“We don’t know that that will work, Peter,” the Captain says suddenly, and Peter jumps, looking up. Apparently, Captain America has Really Super Hearing.

“What do you mean, you don’t know that it will work?” Peter asked, honestly confused, “Its fine, I literally _just did it_ , granted, not with people as injured as Dr. Banner, but-“

“There’s just too many unknown variables,” the Captain broke in, “Anything could happen.”

Peter narrowed his eyes, noticing Gwen also glaring at Captain America out of the corner of his eye.

“You mean that you don’t trust _me_ to pull it off,” he accused, but neither the Captain nor Widow even blinked.

“It’s just not safe,” Captain America said, again with the patronizing tone.

“ _This_ isn’t safe for Dr. Banner, either,” Gwen pointed out, practically hissing. “He’s still losing blood, and when Hulk passes out we’ll have a severely injured Dr. Banner on our hands regardless.”

“We’ll figure something out,” the Captain said stubbornly, turning back to continue his talk with the Black Widow. They were less confrontational now, united as they were against a ‘common enemy’.

Peter looked at Gwen; she looked back at him steadily, and then nodded once. He mimed cutting the rebar, and then pointed to the elevator, and down. She nodded again, and tilted her head. Peter tapped his wrist, where his watch would be if he wore one, and held his hands up in a classic questioning pose. She looked critically around, at the blood slowly pooling around the Hulk’s leg, checking his circulation and his pupil response time… Gwen shrugged, holding up both hands, fingers spread.

Ten minutes? Piece of cake.

Peter leapt for the elevator, throwing himself from a crouch straight into a flat dive that got him past the Captain and Widow before they really knew he was there.

He heard them shouting behind him just as his hands curled over the edge of the floor, tucking his body into a summersault right over the edge – he streaked head first down the shaft, sparing a thought for Gwen. She’d be okay, neither the Captain nor Widow would lay a hand on her, they didn’t know that they were going to get Dr. Banner out of there against their wishes… right? Right. Gwen would be fine, but he had a job to do.

Peter swung himself out into the lobby – only Agent Coulson was still there, speaking into a walkie-talkie. He hesitated, eyeing the agent. Was it worth it to stop, try and get him on their side, convince him that Dr. Banner needed to be moved _now_ , rather than waiting for whatever emergency medical services could make it through to them? Or should he just keep going, ask for forgiveness rather than permission when Dr. Banner was back down here?

In the end it didn’t matter, because he lost his chance to try and sneak past Agent before he could decide.

“Was there something you needed, Mr. Parker?”

Maybe it was the perfectly bland delivery of the question, maybe it was the way his nerves finally stopped jangling from the constant aggravation of the Captain’s condescension and disbelief, maybe it was that Peter was way, way beyond his capacity to even, maybe it was all of these things or none of them, but he decided that the worst that could happen if he told Agent Coulson the truth was that he could have another person telling him ‘You’re not good enough to do this job. Go home.’

“Dr. Banner is injured, like, really injured. He needs immediate medical attention five minutes ago-“

“I’m aware, Parker,” Agent interrupts, and there’s a little wrinkle of concern at the edge of his eyebrow that convinces Peter, “Why are you here?”

“Your team wants to try and get a helicopter to him from outside, so they don’t have to try and get Hulk to turn into his mostly-pink better half…”

“And you don’t agree?” Agent Coulson finishes.

Peter doesn’t hesitate. “No, sir. I can carry Dr. Banner down here, and deliver him to EMS long before they could get a helicopter through the fight outside.”

“How dangerous will turning back be for Dr. Banner?” Agent Coulson asks, not even a little bit patronizing. Peter would gladly follow him into Hell, it’s that nice to be taken seriously.

“Less dangerous than the other options. The longer we wait the more things that could go wrong, that’s just how it works.”

Agent doesn’t think it over for very long; less than ten seconds later, he nods sharply.

“Do what you need to do. I’ll speak with the Captain.”

Peter grins wildly, anticipation once again spiking, thinking about the intense show of bad-assery that is about to go down.

There aren’t a lot of ways into Tony’s lab – nobody trying to get in without proper access codes has any business being there, after all, and for an Engineer Formerly Known as The Merchant of Death, there was lot of dangerous stuff in that room. Peter prayed that the power outages in the Tower hadn’t locked down the lab tighter than the ninth circle of Hell, but he didn’t really have high hopes.

Sure enough, when he made it all the way down to the sub-basement garage-workshop, where all the heavy equipment and the forges were kept, heavy steel doors had descended across the glass walls, everything bolted tightly shut. The access panel was completely non-responsive, and Peter had neither the time nor an energy source to try and get the security system back online.

Breaking into Tony Stark’s workshop was no big deal, right?

It took a lot of really fancy maneuvering, and more than a few undignified, pretzel-like bends, but Peter managed to wiggle into the miniscule crawlspace behind one of the air vents, and from there into the lab. He dropped into the room –

And was nearly brained by a robot.

“Ow! Jesus Dummy, calm down, you’re gonna hurt someone like that!”

The bot whirred at him, tilting the fire extinguisher he carried inquisitively, as though Peter might need to be doused in the immediate future.

“No, Dummy, thank you, that’s very kind, but I actually just need to find the metal cutter.”

Dummy beeped sadly, slumping, but rolled back to the corner of the lab where Butterfingers and You were parked. Peter tore through drawers and dug through tool boxes, leaving behind a much bigger mess than was entirely called for, but it was literally _impossible_ to find anything in the workshop, between Tony’s tendency for tunnel-vision-engineering and Dummy’s ‘help’ organizing.

Fourty-five seconds later, Peter found the hand-held laser cutter, and prayed that the support system of the building was made out of normal steel, not some kind of freakishly-strong alloy that couldn’t be cut by anything known to man.

Peter made what he hoped was his last trip up the elevator in a bit of a daze – his hands were feeling strangely hollow and unsure, and the extended adrenaline rush was starting to do funny things to his head.

Nothing had changed at the ‘scene of the crime’, except Hulk was looking smaller (for such an unnaturally gigantic individual) and paler, and his eyes were closed. Captain America and Black Widow still stood off to the side, whispering to each other, and though they both looked at Peter when he returned, neither of them started yelling or looked like they were going to try and stop him.

In fact, Widow stepped forward and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

Peter looked at Gwen, raising an eyebrow. He certainly didn’t have the first idea of how best to accomplish this.

Gwen had a little frown line between her eyebrows, but her voice was steady when she spoke.

“Our biggest problem is going to come from Dr. Banner shrinking, as it’s going to shift things we don’t want shifting. The best plan is to tie off a tourniquet above the bar, that someone tightens manually as he shrinks, and to tie the bar _to_ his leg, and someone else tightens the ties on _that_ at the same time.”

Peter and Widow looked at each other speculatively.

“I’ll take the tourniquet,” Widow said at the same time as Peter said, “You’d better take the tourniquet.”

Widow’s lip twitched in a way that might have been a hint of the beginning of a smile. They moved to settle at Hulk’s side.

“You’d better start talking to him, Gwen,” Peter said, wrapping a thick cord around Hulk’s injured leg and passing the ends to Widow, who started to tie a knot that she would be able to tighten smoothly and evenly. Peter tied to the bar to Hulk’s leg as securely as he could, hoping to steady it as much as he could during the cutting.

Gwen started murmuring to the Hulk, explaining to him what they needed him to do and why. Peter tuned her out, trusting she would get it done, concentrating instead on where he wanted to place his cuts. He wrapped his fist tightly around the I-beam attached to the rebar to prevent it from tipping farther when its main support was removed. He took a deep breath.

Suddenly, Peter’s vision was filled by an obnoxiously well-defined bicep, attached to a similarly rounded shoulder. He blinked up at the Captain, who had wrapped both of his gigantic hands around the bar, on either side of Hulk’s leg, holding it perfectly steady.

Captain America nodded at Peter, and he started to cut.

The first slice went easily, and the I-beam fell away from the huddle of people of the floor with a _clang_ that made everyone jump. Peter vaulted over the Captain’s seriously impressive shoulders to get at the end of the bar that had emerged from Hulk’s leg, cutting it too, so there wasn’t as much length to deal with when he carried Dr. Banner down the shaft. He tied the shortened bar to Hulk’s leg again, leaving the ends free as he had for Widow’s tourniquet and leaning back.

Peter nodded at Gwen, who tuned to Hulk and murmured, “Now, Hulk, please.”

The Hulk scrunched his eyes closed tightly, wrinkling his whole face up in an expression that should not have been as endearing as it was. He started to change, slowly… First his skin pinked up, and then his chest stopped expanding as far with each breath, then his arms started to pull in towards his chest. From there, the shift was almost distressingly fast, as Peter and Widow scrambled to keep their ties tight around rapidly disappearing muscle. There was a moment where brilliant red blood started to _gush_ from the wound that Peter thought he’d been wrong, that he’d killed Dr. Banner, that none of this was going to work – Widow _yanked_ on her ties with the whole weight of her body, and the blood flow trickled off.

Everyone took a deep breath, and the room was unnaturally still.

Dr. Banner was breathing shallowly, unconscious, and scarily pale. Everyone stared at him for a while, as though waiting for something to go horribly, horribly wrong… Hell, Peter definitely was.

When nothing did, however, both Peter and Gwen lunged forward. Gwen pushed his still body into a sitting position, while Peter turned himself to fit the curve of his back into Banner’s chest. Captain America help lift Dr. Banner so that his shoulders were wedged over Peter’s. They strapped Dr. Banner quickly but tightly to Peter’s back, and as soon as he stood, Widow lashed Dr. Banner’s leg to Peter’s, for extra stability.

“Emergency crews are waiting right outside the elevator for you,” the Captain said, and Peter slumped with relief, though he straightened immediately when it jostled his passenger. “Travel safe.”

Peter couldn’t help but pause at the entrance to the elevator and glance back at Gwen, who was pulling herself onto wobbling feet. She smiled at him when she caught him looking.

“I’ll see you soon, bug boy.”

And with that, they were gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys. Here it is. FINALLY. Bring on the torches and pitchforks, because I have zero excuses for how long this took. I kind of lost the muse, and then picked up a different muse, and then was in a different country, and then came home and found ANOTHER DIFFERENT muse, and then started school, and holy shit you guys, my research project is going to kill me, I swear. 
> 
> If anyone stuck it out this long, I owe you a huge, huge, HUGE, personal 'THANK YOU YOU ARE THE GREATEST PERSON IN THE WORLD'. 
> 
> If you're a new reader, lucky you, you didn't have to wait at all! Yay! 
> 
> I'm wrapping up this fic here, but subscribe to the series if you like it because there may be more in the future. Though I make no promises. I'm practically making negative promises about the likelihood of my finishing anything I had planned for this series.

Bruce wasn't sure what woke him first - which wasn't how it was supposed to be, he knew. He was supposed to be woken by the persistent beeping of a heart-rate monitor, or the disembodied  _whirr_ of a respirator, or the prodding of a fresh needle into his veins. 

Instead, Bruce had only the vague impression of it being dark, everywhere (or maybe his eyes were just closed), and then his eyes were open (or maybe the lights had been turned on).

His eyelids went up and down and he didn't understand why.

Tony was in front of him, and smiling. 

"Sleep, Bruce. We've got you."

Bruce slept. 

They had him. 

+++

Peter _thunked_ his head back against the chair, forcing himself to still. He didn't want to wake Gwen, who had finally pretzel-ed herself into a 'comfortable' position into one of the Iron Maidens hospitals liked to call 'chairs'. Her head was tilted over the back of the chair at a painful angle, stretching her neck out so that every breath rattled out of her neck in an adorable little snore. 

Peter filmed her for a few seconds from his position on the floor at her feet, grinning manically to himself, but quickly grew bored. 

His foot started to shake, bouncing up and down against the speckled linoleum floor. He turned his face into Gwen's knee, trying to take deep breaths. 

God, he needed to  _do something_. Surely Gwen wouldn't mind if he swung out, just for a couple of minutes, just to catch a couple petty criminals. Maybe catch a car thief or two, for old times' sake. 

He sprang up, ready to head for the eighth floor bathroom, which had a window just wide enough to fit his shoulders through, and was not in direct line-of-sight from the street. Or any cameras. Gwen was sure to wake before the hospital opened for visiting hours in the morning, so there was no danger of any one finding her here when she wasn't supposed to be. Besides, Peter would be back long before that. For sure. He would be gone for like, five minutes. Ten minutes tops. 

Peter bent down to scoop his backpack out from under Dr. Banner's bed, only to straighten up and find himself face to face with said doctor, who appeared to be very much awake, not at all unconscious. 

This was probably the part where Peter was supposed to press the nurse call button... 

...Peter continued to fail to press the button. 

"Uh... Dr. Banner? Are you all the way awake this time? How are you feeling?"

Dr. Banner blinked rapidly a couple times, and licked his lips. He tried to clear his throat, which triggered a coughing fit so bad that Peter was sure he was being punished for not immediately pressing the 'I Am In Need Of A Qualified Medical Professional' button. He should probably press it now. 

Gwen was still asleep. Because of course she was. 

Peter got a glass of water instead. Gwen would probably wake up on her own any second now, and then she could do her 'Oh Captain, My Captain' bit with Dr. Banner, and then they could leave, and Peter could finally press the 'I Am Clearly An Idiot, And Somebody Else Needs To Deal With This Situation' button. 

He held the water for Dr. Banner to drink, who didn't seem to mind, judging by the way the man hadn't even attempted to lift his arms. He emptied the glass in a couple of long pulls, and then stared at Peter until Peter got another glass of water. 

That, apparently, was  _not_ what the doctor was after, as he shook his head, and then resumed staring at Peter significantly. 

"Uhh..." Peter hummed, "Are you okay, Dr. Banner? Do you uh... Want me to call a nurse? Because I totally could! Do that, for you, in theory, I mean I would have done it already except well, it's kind of the middle of the night and we're not supposed to be here because nobody's supposed to be here and also Black Widow was being really super scary earlier about only Avengers being allowed in SHIELD medical which is a totally bullshit rule, by the way, other people are in here all the time -"

Peter was forced to consider that Dr. Banner likely listened to exactly  _zero_ of everything he said, because he didn't even wait for Peter to hit a lull (granted, such a lull was probably a long way off) before he interrupted. 

"You saved me."

"-and it's not like we didn't  _already know where-_ Sorry? I saved - uh, yes. Duh. I mean, no, I did. Technically. Well, not really actually, I just kind of uh. Helped? Maybe. I maybe helped save you like, a little bit. It was a team effort?"

Dr. Banner blinked a lot, opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, and then closed it with a frown. 

"Uhm, do you, I mean -" Peter cleared his throat, "How much do you remember?"

Dr. Banner sighed angrily, raising one shaky hand to his forehead to grip his temples tightly. "I don't... I don't know. It's hard to keep memories from the Other Guy - he's not much given to processing and storing information in long-term memory, but it's... Easier, I guess, to keep things when he's calm. I remember - I think I remember Gwen, we were in the lab, and then, there was an explosion? I was - we were hurt, and Gwen was gone and we couldn't get up and then Gwen was back and... and then you were there too and Steve? Natasha? I don't... I don't know... God, it's such a mess!"

"No!" Peter exclaimed, holding his hands up reassuringly, "That was really good, I mean, wow, I don't really have to tell you anything, that was, yup. All of the important bits. Good job, you."

Dr. Banner smiled a little bit, finally looking around the room. His eyes fell on Gwen and his smile widened instinctively, before all the blood drained out of his face, and his stare was more 'horrified' than 'discombobulated hospital patient'. 

"Oh god, is she okay? God damnit, she was in so much danger being there, I never should have -" Dr. Banner broke off with a pained groan, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. 

Peter started to feel a little uncomfortable, but he let Dr. Banner have his moment, because this was a moment that Peter was intimately familiar with. 

"She's really okay, Dr. Banner. Everyone is, I mean, there were a couple injuries in the building, but no deaths, and those weren't even Hulk's fault! Uh, your fault. Whatever. Very definitely they were Doom's fault. One-hundred percent."

Dr. Banner sighed again, though this one sounded much less pained. "That's, that's good. Okay."

They stood(lay) in silence for a while longer, and Peter shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot. 

"Can you tell me what happened?" Dr. Banner asked eventually, and so Peter found a real chair and pulled it up.

"Okay. Sure. Okay. Well, I don't really know how everything went down for  _you_ , because I was not in the building when shit got real, you know? I was just, uh, gardening, and then the news and then Gwen wasn't on the list of people who had been evacuated and then I had to find her so I went into the Tower -"

"Wait!" Dr. Banner interrupted, holding one shaky hand up as though to stop Peter's words physically. "So you entered a building that was structurally damaged and under  _attack_ to find Gwen, even though there is a team of superheroes that  _literally_ lives in that building?"

"Uhm, yes?" Peter said, scowling, "Why is that surprising? This is what I  _do_ , you know this. I wasn't invited to be an Avenger because of my  _fashion sense_. And, I wasn't  _uninvited_ because I'm bad at what I do, right? Besides, it's not like Captain America and Black Widow had made any great strides in getting to you or to Gwen." _  
_

Bruce eyed him narrowly for a while, before smiling. "Continue, please."

Peter sighed and scrubbed his hands through his hair. "I don't know, man. I found you, I brought Cap and Widow to you, we got you stabilized, I got you back down... It was very anti-climactic, really. Tony, Thor, and Hawkeye had all the  _real_ fun, picking off Doombots, and, y'know -  _saving people_."

"You forgot the part where you single-handedly assisted the evacuation of everyone else trapped in the Tower, some of whom you even had to carry out," Gwen noted dryly behind him. 

Bruce jerked at her sudden contribution to the conversation, but Peter had noted the change in her breathing patterns ages ago. 

"That't not actually relevant, Gwen, he didn't exactly  _ask_ what  _I_ had been doing, did he?" Peter turned to give his girlfriend a challenging look, to which she just rolled her eyes, dropping a kiss on his nose. He glared at her, but the effect was probably ruined by the way he couldn't help but smile. 

"I would have counted  _that_ as relevant, Mr. Parker," Dr. Banner smiled, though his grin faded when his eyes turned to Gwen. 

"Pete, will you give us a minute?" Gwen asked, pointedly shoving Peter out of his chair. 

Peter sighed dramatically, scooping up his backpack in both arms. "Fine! Fine! I see how it is. I'm going jeeze, no need to be so _pushy._ "

Gwen shook her head at him with an affectionate eye roll as he slouched his way out of the room as petulantly as he could. As soon as the door  _wooshed_ closed behind him, Peter sprinted for the staircase, not bothering to actually  _run_ up the stairs, instead jumping from railing to railing, straight up the middle. He emerged on the eighth floor in record time, running into the bathroom and shoving the window open as quickly as he could. 

Peter kicked his shoes and socks off, knowing he would need the extra grip from his feet to hang from the side of the building for an extended period of time. He squished himself out of the window, one arm after the other because, as it turned out, his estimate of just what kind of space his shoulders could comfortably fit through was a little off. 

He clambered down the side of the building, scraping the soles of his feet a couple times on the rough brick, but managed to curl himself around the window of Dr. Banner's hospital room enough to hear what was going on. 

"I don't know, Dr. Banner," Gwen snapped, "Maybe because I don't think you have anything to apologize for?"

"I put you in danger, knowing full well that I -"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Peter winced, knowing exactly the kind of glare Gwen would be giving poor Dr. Banner right now. "Do you think I didn't know exactly what the risks were? Both in working for you,  _and_ in going back for you right after the explosion? You told me to run if you ever Hulked out, and I heard you, I really did. But I make my own choices Dr. Banner, and leaving you behind was not a choice I felt like I could make."

"This isn't like helping Peter, Gwen. The Other Guy isn't the kind of dangerous that you can anticipate, or predict, or even  _prepare for_. He's just the kind of dangerous that tears things apart."

" _He_ is  _you_ , Dr. Banner. You're not removing your brain and putting another one _in_ , he's just... Hulk is a person, too. He's not a monster. No more than the rest of us. If you don't want to hurt me, then neither does Hulk."

"It doesn't work like that, Gwen." Dr. Banner's voice sounded muffled, like his head was in his hands. "I  _have_  hurt people that I care about. I've hurt the people that I care about  _more_ than I've hurt people that I never knew."

There was a long silence after that admission.

Then, "We all cause the greatest amount of pain to the ones we care about the most, Dr. Banner. You think I don't know that?" There was an ache in Gwen's voice, a rough timbre that Peter is far too familiar with. It does awful things to his chest, because he knows he put there. "I know  _all_ about being hurt by someone who's just trying to do the right thing, over and  _over_ \- Look." Gwen took a deep breath. "Everyone hurts the ones they care about more than they hurt anyone else - that doesn't excuse your suffering and your trials, but it also doesn't justify your exile. People aren't meant to be alone, Dr. Banner. Especially not gamma-irradiated ones carrying giant green rage monsters in their heads."

The silence that follows this time is even longer and heavier. Peter fidgets as quietly as possible, resisting the urge to drop down far enough just to peek into the room with all his might. 

"Thank you, Gwen." Dr. Banner sounds shaky, like he'd never dared believe that any of it could be true before, and was maybe starting to think about thinking it now. 

"You're welcome, Bruce," she replies warmly, and Peter smiles reflexively at hearing the smile in her voice. "You know, Mr. Stark's going to be really offended that it took me telling you that you weren't a monster for you to finally believe it. He's only been telling you the same thing since he forced you to move in, from what Peter says."

"Tony is insane. There is no one else in the world that comes even close to understanding him, or how he thinks - I guess I always thought that it was just him."

"It's never been just him, Bruce." There was a short scraping sound, which must be Gwen pushing her chair back from the bed and standing. "You know, your email filters a message every week into the junk folder from a Dr. Betty Ross. She's got some pretty interesting ideas about the possible applications of retro-vaccinology that you should look into. Maybe, just think about replying to one of her emails." There was a soft rustle, like Gwen is patting Dr. Banner's shoulder, and then, "I'm ready to leave, Peter."

Peter winced, before dropping down so that he could perch on the window sill. Dr. Banner looked surprised and amused to see him - Gwen was mostly exasperated. But also fond. Definitely also fond. Because she thought he was  _endearing_. Obviously. 

He waved at them through the glass, grinning widely. He jerked his thumb up and mimed an '8' with his fingers. Gwen nodded and turned for the door, but not before Peter blew her a kiss. She shook her head at him, scowling. 

Really, she loved him _so_ much. Peter was so lucky to have such a demonstrative and affectionate girlfriend. 

Peter turned his head to look at Dr. Banner, who was looking at him appraisingly, as though Peter was something small and wriggly on a microscope slide. It  _did not at all_ make Peter very uncomfortable. 

"She's right, you know," Peter called, loudly enough that he thought Dr. Banner would hear him, even through the glass. "Being alone isn't actually better for you, and it's actually a whole lot harder than just letting people in."

Dr. Banner's thoughtful expression was the last image Peter took in before he was flying up the side of the building, back to his shoes and socks and wonderful girlfriend.

Yeah. Peter was pretty lucky.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% sure how the notification system for AO3 works, but I just wanted to let you all know that I'm going to be going back and editing both 'This Is a Bad Town, For Such a Pretty Face' and 'The Danger Is I'm Dangerous', because Holy Grammar, Batman, my verb tenses are all over the freaking place. 
> 
> Why don't you people tell me these things? This is like, the internet equivalent of you guys letting me walk around for months with my fly down, or with broccoli in my teeth. Past-me has seriously embarrassed Present-me. 
> 
> So if you get notifications of updates to this series that are not this chapter, feel free to ignore them. Or go back and read it again, if that's what puts buoyancy in your flotation device - who knows, maybe you'll like the story more when I decide what register I'm speaking in. 
> 
> Can you guys believe that English is my first language? Because sometimes I wonder about myself.


End file.
